A Few Dark Thoughts

By Anne Poulton

A Few Dark Thoughts is a collection of twenty slightly sinister stories recounting how unpleasant and unfortunate events can happen to almost anyone. No Choice recounts what happens to a group of squatters who take over an empty house, No Fun tells us what it's like for a teacher who is in a coma but still be aware of what people around him are saying. Extra Topping is a story of a young man who will do almost anything to earn money the easy way and Someone Else gives us a taste of what lengths a husband will go to in order to get rid of his wife.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Old Vicarage Press
• Release date: Jun 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9780995496316

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A Few Dark Thoughts

Anne Poulton

Published by Old Vicarage Press

Copyright © Anne Poulton 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher at the address below.

Email: [e-mail]

Website: www.oldvicaragepress.com

To my children

Benjamin, Samuel and Helen

CONTENTS

Way To Go 

Too Late For Tea 

Rewarded 

Double-take 

Someone Else 

Two-timing 

A Few Dark Thoughts 

Barnaby's Cupboard 

In Camera 

No Choice 

Final Review

Just Desserts 

The Gift 

The Final Collection 

The Last Job 

No Fun 

Teacher's Pet 

Extra Topping 

Family 

Famous 

WAY TO GO

It was a spectacular view and one which he would carry with him till his dying day. Funny that, because this was going to be his dying day if he had anything to do with it.  Fraser sat cross-legged on the hillside, incongruous in his workday suit in this idyllic country setting, his briefcase at his side and his jacket folded on the grass beside him. He sighed as he felt the dampness gradually seeping into his trousers. Here, he felt a million miles away from the office, the petty politics between the junior partners and the frantic rush of the city streets. He didn’t have to concern himself with the thousands of scurrying people with somewhere to go and something to do below the office windows.

It was deeply peaceful here, with the broad sweep of the hillside rising majestically in front of his eyes. He felt quite calm as he drank in the view, dense clumps of woodland and the hillside dotted with sheep and the brown curl of the small river wandering lazily below along the valley floor. Sitting here, perched above everything, not a human soul in sight for miles, and with his face turned up to the clear, blue sky, he could hear the exquisite chattering of a skylark and could vaguely see it hovering in his peripheral vision. It was as though nature had conspired to keep him here on this earth by making the whole day as beautiful as it could be to try and persuade him that he didn’t really want to kill himself. It wasn’t going to work, though. He knew what he had to do and he made himself bring his thoughts back to his mission today, working hard to keep his mind clear and pure so that he could savour these last moments of sanity.

He had the pills safely stashed away in a locked box file in his bedroom at home, but he hadn’t decided yet whether that was the best way out. His G.P. had prescribed anti-depressants last year at a painful interview in the surgery one Saturday morning, but he hadn’t even begun to take them. He’d filled every prescription and stored them away in the box file every month, the suicide plan forming slowly at first and then definitely in his mind.  His old Volvo sat ticking quietly as its engine cooled in the hilltop car park behind him. It would be a fast and efficient way to end it all if he drove at high speed into a tree along the road on the way back, but Volvos were renowned for their protective qualities, with airbags, crumple zones and the like, and it might be hard to make absolutely sure of a quick end. That was what he wanted. He didn’t want anyone trying to revive him, he wanted certain death with no mistakes. But he also wanted to make sure that he didn’t hurt anyone else while ensuring that his life ended.

If he jumped from a high building, then he might well land on some unsuspecting pedestrian who had got up that morning, taking for granted a fulfilling life ahead of him or her, not expecting to be flattened by someone who only cared about their own demise. He had also considered hanging himself from the banisters above the stairwell or maybe shooting himself in the head, but that would mean that whoever found him would have a terrible shock and might never recover. He still owned a gun from his younger days, when he had briefly taken up target shooting as a hobby. He couldn’t afford the club fees in the end, but he renewed his firearms certificate every five years just in case he ever decided to take it up again, so that was another option he had. He had moved on now and had no interest in target shooting or any other competitive sport. The only shooting practice he had had recently was when the male office staff organised a paintball weekend for Jim’s stag do. He hadn’t actually been invited, but he had innocently assumed that his invitation had been overlooked, as all the other office juniors had been invited. When he had turned up anyway, he quickly realised from the awkward silence that his invitation hadn’t been overlooked at all and that they had been planning to exclude him, but no-one had had the guts to turn him away. He’d held his own, managing to be one of the last to fall.

Although he had made sure that there was nothing that might embarrass him stashed away somewhere in his flat, he still had a niggling feeling that somewhere, someone might find something which would be taken wrongly and judgement made. He was used to judgement, but he didn’t want his epitaph to be anything that the newspapers might sensationalise. Going out quietly with a simple note saying that he had had his fill of life and wanted to go before he contracted a serious illness or drank himself to death was his plan. He had decided that taking a huge overdose of pills was quiet and efficient and suited his character. They would do the job quickly and he had enough stashed away now to make sure that his suicide was guaranteed.

He was known in the office as Fraser the Fixer. He knew full well that those who had nicknamed him had started out meaning that he was a bit of an obsessive. He was the only junior in the office who covered all possibilities, the one who made sure that the projects made perfect sense, both financially and contractually. He took pleasure in making sure that everything was watertight and there were many in the office who teased him relentlessly about his perfectionism, but who also relied on his thorough checking of detail.

Unlike the majority of the juniors in the office, he liked to keep his private life private, which seemed to annoy them. He wasn’t on Facebook or Twitter and didn’t even have his own email account. He wasn’t gay, although many in the office assumed that he was, some of them taking the mickey when the office seniors weren’t around and mincing past him with their wrists flapping. It was just that girls of his own age and type didn’t really do it for him and he preferred to use prostitutes if he needed to. He was extremely careful not to share this predilection with anyone, because there were a few in the office who would have made his life hell if they had found out. It was bad enough that the teasing morphed into nasty bullying at times and, feeling the way that he did at the moment, he didn’t think that he’d be able to stand much more of that, so he avoided telling anyone anything. Others came in on a Monday morning, full of their weekend exploits and conquests but he kept himself to himself. That was his way and he felt safer like that.

Fraser came from a dubious background, one that would be judged harshly by anyone who found out about it, not that anyone could find out unless he told them. He had been rescued as a toddler from a vile-smelling, squalid caravan after the occupants of an illegal encampment had finally been evicted from council land. Those who had abandoned him in the derelict caravan had never come back to reclaim him. The social workers had called him Fraser after the burly policeman who had broken his way into the padlocked caravan and rescued him after hearing his weak cries. He had been placed on a long-term care order in a local children’s home until the age of eight and then he was placed with a childless couple who had only just been accepted as foster carers and had never fostered before. He had formed an intense, almost obsessive, relationship with his foster mother, Carol, who had been very loving and interested in everything he did or produced at school.

They did a lot together, Fraser and Carol. She taught him how to cook spaghetti bolognese and how to roast a perfect chicken and they produced endless cheese scones and delicate fairy cakes which Fraser was allowed to decorate on his own. They often went on expeditions on Saturdays, hunting for berries in the hedgerows around the lanes where they lived or catching the train up to London and browsing through toy shops and visiting the free museums. They occasionally went into the large department stores, trying on clothes and falling about laughing at some of the outfits that Carol tried on.

Despite his dislike of reading, she introduced him to many of the storybooks from her childhood and would read exciting chapters to him at bedtime, with the bedcovers tucked up to his chin and the soft bedside light casting shadows on the walls, lending atmosphere to the stories and illuminating her face as she quietly read. His eyes would slowly close with the cosy warmth of his bed and with Carol’s calm voice. He truly felt secure and loved at those times and never imagined that his happiness would ever end. In his fantasies, Carol was going to adopt him and keep him for ever, making him her real son.

His foster father, Adrian, kept a strict distance between himself and his new foster son. Fraser tried and failed many times to form a relationship with him, only giving up when he caught an unguarded expression of pure hostility on Adrian’s face before it was quickly masked. He realised then that Adrian didn’t actually like him and probably never would. When he got to thirteen, puberty arrived with a bang and he was suddenly overwhelmed with anger and hatred at the world and everyone in it. He often found himself destroying his own and others’ belongings, although he never hurt anyone, only smashing inanimate objects, which he often hurled at the walls in his fury.

He couldn’t explain his hurt and confusion to Carol because he had no idea what was happening to him and why he was behaving in such a destructive way. He couldn’t seem to get his feelings and behaviour under control. It was as though a burst of red rage would explode in his head and he’d forget all the techniques that Carol had tried to teach him to calm down. Only later would he regret losing his temper, but he couldn’t ever bring himself to say sorry as the shame he felt was too overwhelming to acknowledge, so he would retreat to his wrecked bedroom and just hide under the duvet. Carol would cower in the kitchen, fiddling with crockery and cleaning out already clean cupboards when he had one of his fits of rage. Although he was glad that she didn’t come near him when he was out of control, he also wanted to feel her comforting arms around him and her soothing words in his ear. He knew that he could have said sorry then.

When Adrian finally decided that they couldn’t cope with his behaviour any more, he had been sent back to the children’s home, a social worker that he hadn’t met before arriving out of the blue one day and hurriedly packing up his possessions before taking him away, ignoring his mute misery and seemingly docile acceptance. Carol put on a brave face, despite her devastation at losing him, but, to Fraser, it looked as though she didn’t much care whether he stayed or left. She had tried her very hardest to cope and had sought advice and support from any professional she could, to find out what was going wrong. She was desperate to find a solution and make things right for Fraser, but no-one seemed to be able to offer her any answers.

Adrian was cold and business-like about not needing this disruptive child in their home, constantly over-riding Carol’s pleas and it was he who had arranged for Fraser to be returned, like an unwanted delivery item. 

After that, he’d been found a placement with four rowdy teenage boys and two staff members living in a group house. It wasn’t bad and he fitted in well at first, although he didn’t really connect emotionally with anyone after losing Carol. No-one tried to connect with him either. Everyone just got on with their lives and he was left to his own devices, which he was grateful for. His cooking skills were appreciated by the other boys, which helped him to feel accepted. The social worker visited once and, after getting his mumbled agreement that everything was going well, left and was never seen again. He’d left the placement at sixteen and was then given a tiny bedsit which was funded by the council. With the help of one of his teachers, he’d got a place at college which led to his first job as an office boy where he now worked. Slowly, he had worked his way up and today, he had a really nice studio flat in the city centre. The flat was his bolthole and his only really safe place. He had felt lucky to have got himself a steady job with the prospect of promotion.

Fraser briefly rubbed his hands over his face and sighed deeply. He’d have to get going soon, he couldn’t sit here for ever. He’d left the office in a hurry after a particularly bad bout of aggressive teasing from two of the juniors and, although the altercation was hazy in his memory, he still felt a hard knot of anxiety blocking his throat.  He couldn’t remember very much about what had happened between when the teasing had started and leaving the office and driving up here. His mind skittered away when he tried to focus on the events leading up to his being here on the hillside gazing down into the valley.

It was late afternoon already and the warmth was slowly going out of the day. He imagined what his foster parents would say when they heard that he had killed himself. Slowly getting up and brushing the grass off his trousers and picking up his jacket, he opened his briefcase to get his car keys. With any luck, he’d be dead in a few hours and it would all be over and done with. Once he got home, he’d run a hot bath, pour himself a large glass of wine, take his bottle of Evian, swallow all the pills and then die peacefully in the bath. Yes, that would be his last act and he wouldn’t need to face the raw pain he felt inside himself every day, ever again. He felt a rush of relief at the thought of peace, of no more anguish and the insidious, bad thoughts. No more dragging himself through each day and having to pretend that he didn’t care about the sniggers and comments made behind his back in the office and the constant sniping at his precarious defences.

At the office where Fraser worked, the cleaner had come in at ten to six that evening to start on the floors and she discovered the bodies, all of them shot through the head. The floors she had been about to sweep were covered with pools of drying blood amid the clutter of paper everywhere and files spilling their contents. Some of the bodies were still in their chairs while others were sprawled on the floor, having upturned their desks while trying to get out of the door. By the time the cleaning staff in the other offices in the building had arrived in response to her screams, it was obvious that there had been a massacre by someone who was no longer there.

LATE FOR TEA

Joe closed the back door, tugged off his muddy wellingtons and flung them into the basket in the corner of the kitchen. The armchair by the Aga looked too inviting to ignore for long, but Joe had told Mary that he would make her a cup of tea, so he filled the kettle and set it on the hottest plate. Drops of water dripped onto the plate, hissing and spitting as Joe went to the dresser to get down the biscuit tin. As he reached up for it, he remembered the letter that had come that morning. He had pushed it into the drawer after he’d quickly scanned it, so that Mary wouldn’t see it, and now he slid the drawer open and fingered the envelope thoughtfully. Pushing it back into the drawer again, he went over to the window and looked out at Mary, busily weeding the lettuce bed. He leaned his forehead against the cold glass and closed his eyes.

It’s too late, just too late. he muttered and abruptly turned and sat down heavily in the armchair, resting his weary, old legs and wriggling his toes in the thick gardening socks. The kitchen was warm and he felt his eyelids grow heavy, but the kettle started to grumble and he hauled himself up to get the mugs down from their hooks on the dresser and two teabags from the caddy on the worktop.

Again, his eyes were drawn to Mary, kneeling outside on the path, happily pulling weeds from the earth, pushing her hair away from her face with the back of her hand. The postman had come early this morning, before she had got up. Joe had come down to make the first cup of tea and he saw the cream-coloured envelope on the mat. They didn’t get much post, only utility bills and surgery appointments usually, so he was interested when he saw the postmark and large, looped handwriting.  London? he mused, examining the postmark and turning the envelope, sliding his finger under the flap. As he read, his heart seemed to stop.

Hello Mary, this letter has been very hard to write, but I’ve finally found the courage to send it to you it started.

Joe frowned and carried on reading. My name is Jennifer and I think that I’m your daughter. You gave me away when I was born and I don’t have any bad feelings about that, I promise you.

Joe stopped reading and walked unsteadily to the kitchen, the letter dangling loosely in his fingers. Before he started reading again, he stoked the Aga, loaded some wood into it and set the kettle on the hottest plate to boil for their first cup of tea of the morning. He took a deep breath and started reading again.

"I have been looking for you for quite a long time and I’m almost fifty now. I live on the outskirts of London and have three grown-up children, two girls of 20 and 22, Melanie and Chloe, and a boy, James, who is 25. They know about you and so does my husband, Silas. Silas and I have been together now for many years, some of them very